Uncle

Irena Mccammon Scott

Description

In the most comprehensive biographical study of John Purdue (c. 1802-1876) to date, Purdue's great-great-grandniece describes her travels to the diverse places where Purdue had lived in order to learn about the mysterious relative known in her family as Uncle. Using fresh, unpublished source materials-including Purdue's personal correspondence, business ledgers, and the family oral histories-the author examines Purdue's beginning among illiterate, immigrant, Pennsylvania mountain-hollow folks. Uncle challenges a commonly held belief that Purdue was a cold-hearted business mogul. Instead the author shows Purdue as a human being and as a generous family man with a visionary nature.
Acknowledgments

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter One: Pennsylvania: The “Great Path” to Exploration and Education

Chapter Two: Ohio Legends and Facts: Whisler and Marion, Ohio, and Michigan

Chapter Three: Adelphi

Chapter Four: 1839–1850: Lafayette, Indiana

Chapter Five: The 1860s: Civic Leader, CEO, Manager, Connoisseur

Chapter Six: 1860: The Walnut Grove Farm

Chapter Seven: 1864–1870: Uncle’s First Gifts

Chapter Eight: 1866–1870: “The Scales Fell From Our Eyes”

Chapter Nine: 1870–1876: Industry, Mines, and Gutsy, High-Rolling Kings

Chapter Ten: 1870–1876: Field of Dreams

Chapter Eleven: Legacy

Notes

References

Index

Sujets

• Midwest
• Histoire
• State
• United States
• History
• Local

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781557539304
• Langue: English

Extrait

Uncle
The Founders
Uncle
My Journey with John Purdue
Irena McCammon Scott
Purdue University Press / West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2008 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN 978-1-55753-457-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scott, Irena, 1942-
Uncle : my journey with John Purdue / Irena Scott.
     p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-457-6 (casebound : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-55753-458-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Purdue, John, 1802-1876. 2. Purdue University--Benefactors--Biography. I. Title.
LD4672.65.P87S38 2008
378.772’95--dc22
2007001849
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter One
Pennsylvania: The “Great Path” to Exploration and Education
Chapter Two
Ohio Legends and Facts: Whisler and Marion, Ohio, and Michigan
Chapter Three
Adelphi
Chapter Four
1839–1850: Lafayette, Indiana
Chapter Five
The 1860s: Civic Leader, CEO, Manager, Connoisseur
Chapter Six
1860: The Walnut Grove Farm
Chapter Seven
1864–1870: Uncle’s First Gifts
Chapter Eight
1866–1870: “The Scales Fell From Our Eyes”
Chapter Nine
1870–1876: Industry, Mines, and Gutsy, High-Rolling Kings
Chapter Ten
1870–1876: Field of Dreams
Chapter Eleven
Legacy
Notes
References
Index
Color Plates
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Gay McCammon, John McCammon, and Ada and Ruth Crippen—for keeping the memory of John Purdue alive; and to John Brinkerhoff, Lee Jansen, Sue Postle, and William Allen for their help and support.
The author wishes to recognize the following persons for their invaluable help with the writing: Lee Jansen; John Brinkerhoff; William Allen (Ohio State University, Professor Emeritus); Dr. John and Carolyn Starkey (Purdue University); Jim Jump, J.D.; Dr. Kathryn Ward (Franklin University, Ohio); Allan W. Eckert (author/historian); Robert Kriebel (author/historian); and Emily Foster (author/historian). The author is indebted to relatives who helped with both the research and writing: Mark Prosser, Barbara Osborn, Sue and David Postle, Jane Murrow Atherstone, Ken Powers, Ruth Martin, Purdue Williams Prosser, Laura Budd, Rayburn Irwin, Reverend Kenneth and Maryanne Prosser Price, Glynn and Dr. David Mc-Calman, Margie McCammon, Beth Ann Kenny, and Merrillyn (Freeman) Hill.
The author also wishes to especially thank: Sally Love and Mary Kay Brumbaugh (Fort Shirley Heritage Association, Pennsylvania); Nancy Shedd, Rachael Y. Black, and Jean Harshbarger (Huntingdon County Historical Society, Pennsylvania); Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Brumbaugh (Shirleysburg, Pennsylvania); Dr. Don Durnbaugh (Juniata College, Pennsylvania); George Norris (Germany Valley, Pennsylvania); Gail A. Wilson (Franklin County Engineer’s Office, Ohio); Professor H. B. Knoll (Purdue University) and his sons, David and Rich Knoll; June Haste (Lafayette, Indiana); Katherine M. Markee (Associate Professor of Library Science, Interim Head Special Collections and Archives, Purdue University); Sammie Morris (Assistant Professor of Library Science and Archivist, Acting Head of Archives and Special Collections, Purdue University); John W. Hicks (Purdue University Acting President 1982-1983); Donna Van Leer (former Author Liaison, Purdue University Press); Paul Immel and John Bittel (State Library of Ohio); Donna and John Karshner (Adelphi, Ohio, historians); Robert Bower (Pickaway County, Ohio, historian); Darlene Weaver (Pickaway County Historical Society, Ohio); Mr. and Mrs. John Saveson (New Albany Historical Society, Ohio); Mr. John Shockley and Mr. and Mrs. Clark Cubbage (New Albany, Ohio); Mr. and Mrs. Charles Davis (Blendon Township, Franklin County, Ohio); Sherie Perdue Meola (Purdue/Perdue family researcher); Beth Weinhardt (Westerville Public Library, Ohio); Ron Sharp (Indiana State Library); Toni Benson (Van Buren District Library, Michigan); Elsabeth Fridley (Peace Lutheran Church, New Albany, Ohio); Ed A. Flahive, J.D. and E. F. Flahive, J.D. (Flahive Law Office); Charles Johnson (Warren County, Indiana); Wini Clark (Williamsport Library, Indiana); Sandy Furr (Benton County Public Library, Indiana); Virginia Taylor (Benton County Historical Society, Indiana); and others, who contributed directly or indirectly to this project.
F OREWORD
Irena Scott has written an impeccably researched biography of John Purdue that is also a chronicle of the time and place in which he lived. Purdue was such a product of the developmental period of North America that one might well see in him character traits that make up the patchwork quilt of the country he helped sew.
Purdue University is recognized as one of the world’s great centers of learning. It has nurtured fame and fortune and greatness for many of its graduates, as well as advancing the science, technology and culture of what is presently the most powerful nation in history. We owe much to its founder/benefactor John Purdue, but haven’t known many particulars about the man himself until recently.
One might wonder why the life of a founder of Purdue University should have to be searched out at all. How could someone, so much a part of the backbone of pioneer North America, be an enigma? Mainly, it has to do to a lack of adequate documentation revealing his early life. So the first task of Scott’s study of Purdue necessarily amounted to detective work.
The author’s educational background, including a doctorate in physiology, has contributed to her thorough approach in researching her great-great-granduncle’s early years. As with a human zygote, in John Purdue’s young life story there was nothing yet really manifest about the man—and what was known is fragmentary and often contradictive. Rather than quickly moving on to the more fertile field of Purdue’s middle-age success and notoriety, Scott patiently pieces together a mosaic of early Purduvian information—tiny pieces that sometimes fit together loosely and incompletely. She corrects many bits of historical misinformation. When the author had little to go by, she sometimes used reasonable conjecture to good advantage.
Also, with impressive insight into the conundrum of human temperament, Scott managed to give us enough personal complexity about Purdue to allow a kind of tantalizing subtext to emerge—one which could enable some incisive reader to fill in, for example, certain shades and nuisance of character that may be suspected but not provable. At times there is a poignant lack of information—in letters for example—that could be read as sins of omission. Some of the material in hand suggests Purdue as perhaps having a double life. In the end, Scott’s filial bonhomie may incline her to embrace the many positive aspects of Purdue, but her investigative nature and scientific training dictate that she give equal time to his darker side.
Thus we have a sketchy, fragmentary beginning that is not absolutely certain of Purdue’s line of descent, his early education, his religion, his psychosexual proclivities, or even his whereabouts. Yet the spadework pays off. Nothing known about Purdue’s life is given short shrift, and few who read this book will come away without a strong sense of the man’s character. But we might well be cautious about reading strong conclusions between the lines. With so many mysteries, missing pieces, and a bear-baiting subtext, such judgments could actually be more revealing about the reader than John Purdue.
And so it is with all investigative work, be it by a scientist, gumshoe, coroner, or prosecuting attorney.
Of Purdue’s more visible middle age career, Scott writes: “After the Civil War, the nation underwent its greatest reorganization in history—the Reconstruction. Concepts of equal rights, freedom, and education for all, which had been dormant words on documents, now caught fire. Here in the Reconstruction period, Purdue made his greatest mark. By 1865 Purdue was an educated, cosmopolitan millionaire at the peak of health, luck, personality, and reputation.” Yet after his wealth and power dragged him into the all-too-visible center of media attention, we also come to see his public image as a mass of contradiction: full of brilliance and banality, altruism and power-mongering, a well-read semi-literate, a somewhat deep but also shallow thinker, full of sentimentality coupled with violent verbal outbursts.
In other words, John Purdue finally emerges as a three-dimensional human being, warts and all, a bit like some people we might know. So how was it that he came to accomplish so much more than most? Scott shows us that he did it through sound, innovative business practices, fair play, frugality, indomitable will over others, what amounted to well over half a bachelor’s lifetime of hard single-minded Herculean work, and by doggedly pursuing his “impossible” dreams. His Yankee ingenuity was legend and so was his poker playing, says Scott. At his peak, he had become very wealthy. It was time that he begin to turn his fortune to good use, time to hand over his money to a higher cause than himself, to the greater good of all. He had always been generous and philanthropic, but his grand design to fund a major university would take virtually everything he had.
When John Purdue achieved his dream, the launching of Purdue University, he was well advanced in age, and his health and personal powers were failing. But it hardly see